culture

Chapter 3

The Basis of Culture

Culture: knowledge, values, customs, and physical

objects that are

shared by members of a society

Society: specific territory inhabited by people who share a common territory

Culture and Heredity

Instincts: innate (unlearned) patterns of behavior

• humans cannot go far on instinct alone

• humans face more complex issues

Is culture more important than instinct for people?

If all women had an instinct for mothering…

• all women would want children

• all women would love and protect their children

How does heredity affect behavior?

Nature v. Nurture

Personality Traits:

½ determined by genetics

½ determined by environmental factors

Reflexes and Drives

Sociobiology

Sociobiology: the study of the biological basis of

human behavior

• believe the behaviors that best help people are biologically based and transmitted in the genetic code

Criticism:

Language and Culture

Symbols, Language & Culture

The most powerful symbols are those thatmake up language

The pen is mightier than ________________.Better safe than _______________.It’s always darkest before _______________.Don’t bite the hand __________________.No news is ________________________.If you lie down with dogs, you’ll __________________.A penny saved is a penny _________________.Children should be seen and not ____________.Better late than ______________.

Common Proverbs

Are Language and Culture Related?

Language frees us from the limits of time and space!

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Hypothesis of linguistic relativity: our idea of reality depends largely upon language

Since languages differ, perceptions differ

What can vocabulary tell you about a culture?

When something is important to a society, there are lots of words to describe it

Norms and Values

Norms: rules defining appropriate and inappropriate behavior

Folkways

Folkways: norms that lack

moral significance

MoresMores: norms that have moral dimensions

that should be

followed by members of the

society

TabooTaboo: a norm so strong that when violated

it calls for

strong punishment

Laws

Law: a norm that is formally defined and

enforced by authorities

Enforcing the Rules

Sanctions: rewards and punishment used to encourage

people to follow norms

Formal Sanctions

Formal Sanctions: sanctions imposed by people given special authority

Informal Sanctions

Informal Sanctions: rewards or punishments that can be

applied by most members of a group

Values - The Basis of Norms

Values: broad ideas about what is good or desirable shared

by people in a society

Basic Values of the United States

• achievement and success

• activity and work

• efficiency and practicality

• equality

• democracy

• group superiority

Beliefs and Physical Objects

Nonmaterial Culture: ideas, knowledge, and beliefs that influence a people’s behavior

Material Culture: the concrete, tangible objects of a culture

Ideal Culture: cultural guidelines that group members claim to accept

Real Culture: actual behavior patterns of members of a group

Cultural Change

discovery

Diffusion

invention

Cultural Diversity

Subculture: group that is part of the dominant culture but that differs from it in some important aspect

Counterculture: a subculture deliberately and consciously opposed to certain central beliefs or attitudes of the dominant culture

Ethnocentrism: judging others in terms of one’s own cultural standards

Cultural Universals: general cultural traits that exist in all cultures

Cultural Particulars: the ways in which a culture expresses universal traits

Why do Cultural Universals exist?